Sensory Excursions in the City: Deliberations on Teaching Practices and Interventions

Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 11:00-12:45
Location: SJES011 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
TG07 Senses and Society (host committee)

Language: English

Cities are sites of social structure, difference, transgression, inequalities and violence. At the same time, these sites are the settings for complex social relationships and practices negotiated on an everyday basis. Within these spatial, temporal and socio-political processes, the sensorial remain central in mediating these relations and experiences and organising urban life.

Teaching effectively, inclusively, and critically about the intersections of the sensory and the urban remains an important endeavour in our classrooms. As educators, we recognise the salience of equipping our students with theoretical frameworks, methodological tools, and practical skills necessary to engage meaningfully with sensory phenomena in the context of cities and their cultural, social, and environmental contexts through the lens of gender, race, sexuality, class, age, ability and other aspects of our human lives.

We welcome teaching reflections, interventions and deliberations on broad themes critically mapping out the teaching of the senses in cities and urban life which include (but are not limited to) sensory ethnographies in and of the city; the regulation and organisation of everyday life and the senses in different urban settings; sensory order and disorder in cities; cities as sensorial spaces of power, belonging and exclusion; cities, memories and the senses; and urban change and social transformation through the senses. These include proposals that focus on curriculum design, innovative teaching methods, fieldwork and practicum experiences, ethical considerations, assessment and evaluation, digital humanities and technologies and other aspects that relate to teaching and pedagogy across different cultural and geographical contexts.

Session Organizers:
Noorman ABDULLAH, National University of Singapore, Singapore and Catherine EARL, RMIT Vietnam, Vietnam
Oral Presentations
Senses, Emotions and Gender Violence in Public Spaces. Reflections on a Sensory Workshop
Olga Alejandra SABIDO RAMOS, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Azcapotzalco, Mexico; Paula PAULA SOTO, Mexico
Framing Sensations: Ethical Considerations of Teaching Visual Methods in Sensory Research
Catherine EARL, RMIT Vietnam, Vietnam; Daisy KANAGASAPAPATHY, RMIT Vietnam, Vietnam
Fielding and Feeling a City Together: Notes on Collaboration
Deepti SREERAM, Ashoka University, India; Anjana S, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India
See more of: TG07 Senses and Society
See more of: Thematic Groups